Ten Q’s with Bridge Underwater!

Pat Mellon from Bridge Underwater was nice enough to do a little interview, so here’s what he had to say…

How do your songs get written? Is it a collaborative effort or areyou the musical mastermind behind it all?

So far all of the songs have been written and recorded by me. I write little “song ideas” or demos all of the time, and then I go back and pick the best ones to flesh out into full songs. John’s making up all of the drum parts for the new songs though. It’s really cool to have a real drummer to bounce ideas off of. It helps the song come together more quickly.

Your new EP, “Send Me All Your Love,” doesn’t seem to be anywhere near your first release. I need to ask about your switch to hi-fi and what you consider to be in the Bridge Underwater “canon” at this point. Do you consider this a new beginning, or do you count Trying My Best and Feeling in there too?

When I started out writing and recording I was only 17 and still learning how to write songs. I recorded on a 4 track because it seemed the easiest way to do it, and I didn’t know anything about digital recording. Then I learned how to record on a computer, but I still didn’t know how to write good songs. I consider Feeling to be a new beginning musically because those were the first songs that I wrote that didn’t have completely garbage lyrics. Also Feeling is more “serious” than any of my previous songs. The new EP is definitely a continuation of what I learned on Feeling. I don’t completely dismiss all of the older songs though—they’re still fun to listen to sometimes.

Do you plan on staying hi-fi now that you’ve proven to yourself how well it works for you?

Most likely, yes. But that doesn’t mean I’ll never do lo-fi music again. I guess it’s whatever feels right at the time. Sometimes I get really impatient and just want to throw a song together quickly instead of working on one song for months.

What are your strongest influences that people might not know about?(The influences do not have to be music, but can be if you want.)

I love Jack Kerouac. I don’t know if he influences my music though. But I love his work and read it all the time.

How did you and John (drummer) meet, and who came up with the idea to start playing together?

John and I met in the 7th grade. He started playing guitar and drums sometime in high school, but we went to different schools and never got a band together. In 2009 I started to perform live for the first time at open mics and stuff, and I thought, “John should play drums with me.” He thought it was a cool idea too, so that’s where we started.

What’s the most interesting thing that’s happened at a Bridge Underwater show?

I don’t know. Nothing too out of the ordinary has happened at our shows yet. We’ve probably only played 10 shows so far though. At our last show John drank like 7 or 8 glasses of Coke. Big glasses too. I thought that was pretty interesting. Maybe if it were 7 or 8 beers or shots I would have a more interesting story to tell.

What superhero would each of you guys be, and why?

Pat: Any superhero who could fly. I hate driving—it’s such a waste of time. If I could fly around I would do a lot traveling. I’d give people rides and stuff.

John: I feel like Brodie from Mallrats. I could go on way too long with this. First, I want to go on record and say my favorite superhero is Batman and my favorite one of the X-Men is Gambit. With that out of the way, I’d be Superman. He can fly, has invulnerability, can shoot lasers out of his eyes and is super fast. Plus he has a lot more additional superpowers. The ability to fly would be awesome. I’d probably just fly around all day. I’m not really feeling that costume though. Just saying.

Were you surprised by the way your recordings came out, like forexample, did you think you’d end up playing in a different genre orsounding like Creed?

I think that’s a big concern for every band when they’re recording: how to not sound like Creed. Just kidding. Some bands probably want to sound like Creed, I guess. But I am glad the music didn’t turn out like that. That wasn’t what I was going for at all.

What is next for the band? Are you working on solely the new fulllength or will you put out another EP first? Do you plan to tour offthe new EP and your previous releases, and if so, with who?

We hope to play a lot of shows in 2011. Wherever we can. Tour in the summer if possible. It’s hard to get shows out of town though because we’re just starting out and don’t know any other bands. *Any bands/fans/friends reading this who would like to help us out with shows, please get in touch!

We have a lot of songs we’d like to put out. We’ll probably put out an EP next or a single. The main problems are money and time. It took me a lot of time to record Send Me All Your Love because I really tried to get everything perfect. And it isn’t cheap to get the songs mixed and mastered properly.

Hopefully by playing more and more shows we’ll be able to save up some money to record in a studio. I think that will save some of the headaches of trying to get the perfect guitar or drums sound. Pay someone else to do it. Then we can just focus on writing the song.

If possible, would you play music forever? Or would you grow tired of it eventually?

I’m always going to play music. Every now and then I get tired of certain aspects of the “music business” like recording or whatever, but I’ll always want to play the guitar or keyboard or sing for fun.

Bonus Question!: Who would win in a fight, a kangaroo or a komodo dragon? Why?

Definitely a komodo dragon. Those things are nasty. I’m assuming these two animals are locked in some sort of ring together? The kangaroo might be fast and will probably get a few good kicks to the dragon’s head, but eventually it’s going to get bit, and komodo dragon’s have a poisonous bite. That’s that.

Well, the world is short on metaphorical kangaroo now, but thanks for reading and here’s a reward…

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Hey there! My name's Chris and I'm from New Jersey. Music is kinda my thing, so I figured 'why not write about it?' I hope to spread music that isn't radio garbage, no matter how obscure. I promise not to be too biased (no hipster BS here!) and to keep an open mind, and I ask that you do too. Enjoy!

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